Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
After the world escaped a nuclear exchange during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, it has been generally understood that nuclear-armed nations did not publicly threaten their rivals and enemies with thermonuclear weapons.
Of course, there were occasional lunatic exceptions to the rule. Since 2006, when the unhinged North Korean regime acquired nuclear weapons, the world has periodically dismissed the zany threats from the Kim dynasty. Kim Jong Un has sporadically warned he might strike Japan, South Korea, and the United States—usually in an outrageous and outlandish fashion.
Kim finally was warned of the consequences of his brinkmanship rhetoric, most famously by Donald Trump in 2018. He reminded Kim that the American nuclear button was bigger than North Korea’s—an eerie counter-warning that for a time led to the cooling of North Korean rhetoric.
Pakistan went nuclear in 1998. From time to time, its prime ministers have warned India that in any confrontation, what Pakistan lacked in numbers and arms would be made up by the preemptive use of nuclear weapons. But again, Pakistan’s threats, like those of Kim Jong Un’s, were dismissed as the rantings of the insecure and blustering, who were otherwise deterred by much larger nuclear arsenals.
But the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine opened a new chapter in nuclear trash-talking. The Ukrainian war has proved dangerously unique in a variety of ways. True, there have been prior large land wars involving nuclear powers. The first Gulf War of 1991 saw Britain, France, and the United States combine to help crush Iraq without mention of nuclear arms. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 without such threats. Neither did China mention a nuclear option in 1979, despite a less-than-successful short invasion of Vietnam. Nor did Great Britain, in its 1982 retaking of the Falkland Islands, talk of the bomb, although recently declassified documents revealed that the Royal Navy carried 31 nuclear weapons on its expeditionary fleet—presumably depth charges, bombs, and missiles—to the chagrin of the current Argentine government.
Yet the Ukrainian war is the first large conventional war on the very doorstep of a nuclear superpower. And additionally, it has become a proxy war between the nuclear-armed NATO alliance and nuclear Russia.
There are other dangers as well. The old maxim that democratic governments do not pose existential threats to the same degree as their autocratic counterparts suggests that the Putin regime is a bit different, a bit more unfettered than its NATO enemies.
Another challenge is the fact that the saga of Russian and Ukrainian borders is complex, with long messy histories analogous to the volatility of the Balkans, and especially accentuated with the collapse of the borders of the old Soviet Union.
Much of western Ukraine was Polish until 1939, when it was gobbled up and never surrendered by Stalin in 1945, who had switched alliances in 1941 to the Allied side. Crimea had been Russian since 1783, when it was annexed from the Islamic Khanate. Much of Ukraine itself was part of Russia from the 18th century until the collapse of the Soviet Union. In sum, autocracy, irredentism, and nuclear war make for a volatile combination.
But far more dangerous is the notion that Russia was a superpower and in some ways still is one, given its huge land mass, its rich natural resources of natural gas and oil, and its nearly 6,000 nuclear weapons—still the largest such stockpile in the world.
But most importantly, Putin’s blatant aggression is now checked and stalemated, and thousands of Russians have died. Ukraine is on the offensive, and there have been prior attacks on the Russian Black Sea fleet, strikes inside Russia itself, and apparent drone missions against Moscow suburbs. No one knows who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline, but assurances that it was not Russia’s enemies seem increasingly unconvincing, as new narratives emerge of Ukrainian responsibility, with likely Western support and perhaps foreknowledge.
Ukraine’s stated war aims are not just to push Moscow back to the 2022 prewar border, but to cleanse Ukraine of all Russian troops and restore the 2014 Ukrainian nation, including all of Crimea and the disputed borderlands. That, of course, is a legitimate aim, given Russia’s cruel invasion and targeting of civilian targets. But the expansive agenda poses additional paradoxes and dangers—and what is a militarily sound and necessary strategy can often go out the window when nuclear weapons come into play.
Putin first invaded Ukraine during the appeasing years of the Obama-Biden Administration. His sudden rashness likely was in response to the 2011 American Libyan misadventure, the empty Obama “redline” rhetoric in Syria, John Kerry’s request for Russia’s reentry into Middle East affairs, and Obama’s eerie “Tell Vladimir” quid pro quo “deal” of “space” for ending missile defense, all caught on a hot mic in Seoul in March 2012.
In any case, no major Western leader, and especially not Barack Obama, ever had talked of supporting a counteroffensive between 2014 and 2022 to reclaim what had been lost in 2014. That current Western-sanctioned aim apparently emerged in 2023 in response to Russian setbacks and deeper Western supply intervention. Of course, new agendas always arise as a legitimate part of war, and hinge on the pulse of the battlefield. But again, there was no Obama-Biden post-2014 initiative to rally the West then to reclaim what it aims to now.
A final wrinkle is the massive U.S. and NATO military aid to Kyiv, which in direct shipments, intelligence, and training might already have exceeded $100 billion. If so, Ukraine, in the most recent 12-month period, would have enjoyed the third-largest military budget in the world, behind only the United States and China—and nearly double the annual defense expenditures of Russia itself.
Stranger still, Ukraine and its Western allies claim that such a staggering sum is insufficient, given that Ukraine needs far more offensive weapons to cut off the Russian supply chain, originating, of course, from inside Russia. That offensive agenda apparently is now to include F-15 and F-16 fighters, the most sophisticated German, British, and American armored vehicles, billion-dollar anti-missile batteries, and the most lethal artillery and missile weapons in the world.
Add it all up, and what we are witnessing is a once haughty and aggressive dictatorial Russia so far increasing bleeding and humiliated in Ukraine—in large part thanks to the largest shipments of Western military support to any single country since the Anglo-American Lend-Lease supply of Soviet Russia in World War II.
These weapons, necessary to the defense of an invaded Ukraine, largely explain Russia’s enormous losses, which may have reached or exceeded 200,000 or more dead, wounded, captured, and missing.
Once-loose talk of incorporating Ukraine into NATO is now de rigeur. Next followed the admission into the alliance of Finland, with its 800-mile-long Russian border, and soon likely Sweden, which likewise possesses an extremely capable military and is a neighbor as well of Russia.
What does all this mean to a humiliated Russia?
The Putin dictatorship, which asked for such comeuppance, is flailing. The Russian military has suffered global disgrace. Moscow blames Western powers for ensuring the collapse of its offensive in its own backyard. Western leaders, including the U.S. defense secretary, have boasted that the Ukraine war is a needed proxy conflict in which the West will further weaken Russia and curb its aggression.
Now Ukraine is targeting sites inside Russia—as traditional military doctrine would advise if its aim is to expel all Russians from its pre-2014 borders. But again, that was not the policy of the West from 2014 to 2021. Many of today’s loudest hawks were strangely silent when the Obama Administration appeasement led to the 2014 Russian invasion, that then was shrugged off as a permanent fait accompli throughout the Obama years.
Russia is facing internal chaos and war resistance. An ailing Vladimir Putin is reeling. And the result is the largest epidemic of nuclear trash talk since the dawn of the nuclear age, almost all of it blithely dismissed as empty saber-rattling by an ailing thug who got his just deserts.
Perhaps. But consider that the epidemic of nuclear bluster has exceeded the usual “one-bomb state” nuclear nonsense from theocratic Iran.
For example, in summer 2022, Putin repeatedly suggested that Russia reserved the right to use nuclear weapons if threatened with destruction. A few prominent Russians openly envisioned thermonuclear war. Alexei Zhuravlev, a member of the Russian parliament, boasted on Russian state television, “I will tell you absolutely competently that to destroy the entire East Coast of the United States, two Sarmat missiles are needed. And the same goes for the West Coast. Four missiles, and there will be nothing left.”
In September 2022, as Russian fortunes in Ukraine became even more problematic, the threats increased. Former Russian lawmaker Sergei Markov warned of such intercontinental strikes with nuclear weapons, publicly warning London: “In Russia, there’s partial mobilization, and for your British listeners, Vladimir Putin told you that he would be ready to use nuclear weapons against Western countries, including nuclear weapons against Great Britain. Your cities will be targeted.”
In March, the International Court at the Hague indicted Putin as a “war criminal” for the savageries unleashed in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In response, a number of prominent Russians once again threatened a nuclear response. The former president of the Russian Federation and current deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, warned the justices, “It’s quite possible to imagine a surgical application of a hypersonic Onyx from a Russian ship in the North Sea to The Hague courthouse. So, judges, look carefully to the sky.”
Margarita Simonyan, of the Kremlin-funded broadcaster Russia Today, likewise threatened, “I’d like to see a country that would arrest Putin under the ruling of The Hague. In about eight minutes, or whatever the [missile] flight time to its capital.”
When a mysterious unidentified drone hit the Kremlin in early May, there was a chorus of renewed calls for nuclear action: “After today’s terrorist act, no variant remains other than the physical elimination of Zelenskyy and his clique,” once more thundered the megaphone Medvedev. And the chairman of the lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, warned the Ukrainian nation that he would demand “the use of weapons capable of destroying it.”
Russia’s former space chief Dmitry Rogozin likewise tried to lower the threshold of nuclear weapons use: “According to our [nuclear] doctrine we have the right to use tactical nuclear weapons because that’s what they exist for . . . a great equalizer for the moments when there is a clear discrepancy in the enemy’s favor.” When still more likely Ukrainian drone bombers hit an upscale district of Moscow in late May last year, Medvedev again issued more of his nuclear bombast: “The West does not fully realize the threat of nuclear war . . . There are irreversible laws of war. If it comes to nuclear weapons, there will have to be a preemptive strike.”
Accordingly, the threshold on nuclear trash-talking and preemptive war in general have been lowered elsewhere. In December 2022, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, explicitly warned Greece that newly acquired Turkish missiles could strike Athens itself—unless “you stay calm.” As Erdoğan more unabashedly defined his threats: “When you say ‘Tayfun,’ [“typhoon”] the Greek gets scared and says, ‘It will hit Athens.’ Well, of course, it will . . . We can come down suddenly one night when the time comes.”
In December 2022, Iran was again talking of strikes against the Israeli’s nuclear reactor with threats to “raze Tel Aviv.” Tehran released a video showing simulated nuclear missile attacks destroying Israel. China is now in on the act, bragging about the virtual end of a defiant Taiwan, and has issued nuclear threats against both Japan and Taiwan, should they alter Taiwan’s status.
All this rhetoric again is treated with nonchalance in the West—and occasionally with near glee as welcome symptomology of Russia’s crackup and the impending implosion of the Putin regime.
Maybe, maybe not.
Yet with billion-dollar critical pipelines and dams blowing up, we are entering a new phase of the war, in which casual reference to hitting targets inside Russia, of nonstop bragging about the superiority of lethal Western weapons over their inferior Russian counterparts, of schadenfreude over the flailing Russians, and reports of horrendous losses to both Ukraine and Russia are all earning eerie nuclear backtalk that we have not heard in 60 years.
Is it all just saber rattling, buffoonery, the last braggadocious mutterings of a failed regime? Cheap efforts to obtain deterrence that Russian arms have lost? Perhaps. And then again, perhaps not.
The key to remember, however, is that there must be a near certainty that nuclear trash-talking is all cheap rhetoric, since the slight chance that it forewarns something deadly serious is . . . quite deadly, indeed.
Did I miss it? The CIA’s color revolution in 2014 that overthrew the democratically elected president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych? And any doubts about who blew up the Nord Stream Pipeline were removed by the trustworthy Seymour Hersh’s report. What about the recent destruction of the Kakhovka dam endangering the largest nuclear reactor in Europe?
Clearly, IMO, there are those in the US war-machine who’d invite global nuclear armageddon because they believe they’re fully prepared & protected, and moreover they’re convinced their side would win. Yes, we have more than a few Dr. Strangeloves.
Exactly! Every D!P$h!t wants to join the game at 1/2 time. Has anyone ever gone back and listened to Putin’s speeches at the UN since 2014? Evidently not. He has every right to level Ukraine.
Garbage! Even if all his claims were true, that wouldn’t give him the right to “level” the entire country and carry out a genocide. I hope Putin pays you a lump sum, and not by the word!
Baseless speculation and conspiracy mongering. I could read this on TASS.
This aligning of the planets appears to be heading in the direction of the inevitability of a nuclear event. the insertion of a corrupt leftist stooge in the US White House has facilitated the deterioration of the global situation leading the world into destruction. The stage has been set, immorality and evil are overwhelming the world, what will be the spark? When that nuke genie is unleashed who will put it back in the bottle?
Dr. Hanson, why has Joe Biden’s Feb. 2022 joint press conference, with the most pertinent party, German’s Chancellor Scholz, been ignored? Furthermore not retracted by his aides but publicly repeated by a high ranking State Dept. official. He specifically & unequivocably states that he will take out the Nordstream pipeline if Russian tanks cross the Ukrainian border.
Why is everyone pointedly ignoring this, not even mentioning it as a possibility? Biden even boasts that “we know how to do it”, with the implication specific plans had already been prepared.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8YC7UQVmis
Yes, definitely, Joe “promised”. It was there for the whole world to see and hear.
Many did.
Yet, “I promise you…” carries nothing for most. Such a widespread ignoring of the promise.
It makes one wonder what is going on behind the scenes. What’s missing?
It resonates with the wonder at O’s confession to an audience of his place of birth.
It’s so darn quiet.
Who took the blindfold off Lady Justice?
Hi Leroy! My honest (no troll)answer to that would be that Biden shut down the Israel Cyprus line with talk and opened Nordstream back up after Trump with talk. Only part of the projected Nordstream system had been built, so I think since there haven’t been more leaks since the Hirsch essay and Hirsch is aged and unpredictable, people are thinking that he meant talk so long as other possible culprits are looking like stronger possibilities. That’s my quick answer.
VDH is way off kilter on the knowledgeable viewpoints of recognized political and military pundits who have documented the failed U.S. Neo-con foreign policy and direct aggression shown to Putin/Russia.
Dear Vlad,
Stop posting the same crap over and over in the comments.
PS – Zelensky might be a jerk, but if you nuke London or The Hague, say goodbye to EVERY CITY IN RUSSIA.
EVERY CITY.
And America.
EVERY CITY.
If their nukes work and we don’t take them out first. But why go here? The whole point is that MAD still holds. Putin is weaker than he was a year ago and his strongmen are clearly jockeying for power. If he gives the order to launch a nuke, he’s a dead man.
Uictor’s been about as pessimistic as you can get on the War in Ukraine without entering the murky realm of conspiracy theory or just favoring “conservative” strong men over liberal democracies. Which pundits, specifically, should he be interacting with? Who’s got it right? Name names. No pedophiles, wife-beaters, avowed isolationists, or people who have been out of the military loop for more than 20 years.
That failed policy and direct aggression are seriously troubling, as viewed from this corner of the peanut gallery.
Especially so after hearing Mr. Xi’s advice to his new ‘best friend’, again paraphrasing: ‘stay cool, change is coming soon.’ Meanwhile, back at planning headquarters yesterday, the WH advised it was preparing yet another $2billion as another gift to the Ukraine piano player. Is the Pentagon purchasing weapons left behind by the US in Afghanistan that are now owned by the Taliban, as a form of nation stabilizing aid to Afghanistan, in order to gift Ukraine arms of war. Ukraine is known to be the most corrupt in all of Europe. It would fit Bob Gates’ description of Biden; it would fit Obama’s description too. If true, it’s possibly the biggest comedy of errors since the Bard wrote that phrase.
I love hearing him, he speaks with years of knowledge of history.
But then he brings up Ukraine/Russia/U.S. – and sounds like a complete paid for propagandist shill for the failed U.S. /Neo-con NWO agenda – which makes me question all that he espouses – which, I’ve learned, is how I should address everything and everyone, so there is a positive amongst all the negative.
Um, no. Do you read any war hawks? Uictor is trying to stake out a workable position (one that I happen not to agree with). You don’t have to be Mearschimer or a MIC Schil. Such tribalist extremism loses your case before you’ve even made it.
Well, not really. he skipped over 2014.
I use to read VDH with the utmost respect; not anymore. His knowledge of history is equaled only by his ignorance of current affairs and technology in this Ukrainian/Russian conflict. He clearly is getting his info from Condi Rice and the Neo-cons. Except for some maneuverable satellites, giving us superior ISR, the Russians are superior in every aspect of ground-warfare and are slaughtering the UAF. This conflict was provoked by Washington, like every other war we have been involved in, but this time we have chosen unwisely. The Russians are destroying Ukraine, NATO, and by extension the US. We are singing the “Swan-song” of nuclear weapons because we have lost this war of conventional standards.
James, I partially agree. This essay reads like a Hoover Institute white paper, omitting a few inconvenient facts. So what . . . he knows on what side his bread is buttered.
I remain a huge fan of VDH, the oracle of Selma, for his ability to flesh out the bones of ancient history.
Bwahahahaha! ahem. Excuse me. So, um, who should Uictor be listening to? If it’s so patently obvious, name names.
Your sentiment is mine exactly, with one minor change below: “I use to read VDH with the utmost respect; not anymore. His knowledge of history is equaled only by his ignorance of current affairs and technology in this Ukrainian/Russian conflict. He clearly is getting his info from FOX NEWS and the REST OF THE MSM and Neo-cons….” VDH is great at giving a weekly listing the grievances against the Regime – in other words he is useless…..
You keep using that word “Neo Con”. I don’t think it means what you think it means.
Dr. Hanson’s essays are very much appreciated and his warnings and wisdom should be heeded!
I would like his assessment on the number of people living in Ukraine and Taiwan who support the Russian Federation or the CCP. I have heard it is over 30%. Would like an assessment from the Professor…
Site your source for this?
Can’t list anything for Ukraine, however, friends in HK and Taiwan advise that a significant % would like to return to the mainland they fled when Chiang decided it was time to get out of Dodge. The older population reportedly would like that.
Good to know. Thanks for the insight!
It’s BS and bluster, until it’s not.
The only thing I hear much about in the media is how many billions of dollars are being sent to Ukraine along with weapons shipments/authorizations.
If there is alarm in the media over the potential use of nuclear weapons in this war. It must be set on snooze mode. I had no idea of how great the number of Russian loses in this war. 200,000 is about 4 times the number of deaths incurred by America in the entire Viet Nam War. These losses may have placed Putin in a desperate place. Desperate men may take desperate actions.
Where are the envoys seeking to deescalate this war? Since the Biden administration is most likely
incapable of suing for peace, is there no other country that might take up the challenge of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia? There is a huge vacuum of leadership in the USA today. This creates an invitation for our enemies to exploit our weakness and to consider what would otherwise be unthinkable. Our media like our government is apparently OTL
What sources are you getting your news from? Institute for the Study of War will cover the basics. National Review Online runs articles on both ends of the Conservative spectrum (Michael Brendan Dougherty vs. Noah Rothman). European news stations like France 24 or the BBC will often go into more detail about the political machinations. China and Ukraine have both been seeking a peaceful resolution as well as a coalition of African nations. Both the Conservative and Liberal US press have documented Biden’s slow-walking of aid to Ukraine and he has a history of stubborn non-interventionism going back to Vietnam that suggests he’s far less hawkish on Ukraine than his bluster would suggest.
Stephen Long: You need to read more then.
Huh… Russia is losing an Putin is dying… Sounds familiar…
Hanson has the warmonger disease I no longer follow. How much cash does the MIC infuse in his account.
Really?!?! REALLY? Hanson is a warmonger? Bwahahaha! No.
I respect VDH and have read lots of his thoughtful pieces over the years. This one is puzzling to me as a year ago he was calling to a negotiated settlement where Ukraine would have to cede some parts of Eastern Ukraine to Russia as well as recognize Crimea as Russian territory. Many pundits no aligned with the mainstream media are pushing back against the narrative that Russia is losing. They are just biding time and even with advanced weapons systems from the west there are not enough Ukrainians left to fight on all fronts. They have over extended themselves and Russia will keep grinding them down to the last Ukrainian. I’m curious why VDH has changed his tune and gone hawkish ? It’s true that nuclear war would be disastrous for everyone on the planet so why aren’t calmer heads demanding a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement?
The Russians are nipple twisting the US and the inept and corrupt Biden Mafia. I only hope I survive the exchange long enough to hear Russia got everybody.
I would love to see Mr. Hanson respond to Vladimir Putin‘s 2021 Valdai discussion group speech (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O6867dZRaoQ) and if he has not already discuss with General Douglas McGregor, Scott Ritter, & Stew Peters.
I would too.
Victor. If you’re going to have a comment section you’ve got to allow most comments even if they disagree with you or you’re no better than the scum leftist media. If you allow my first comment which is a bit critical of VDH then please delete this one. All the best and God bless.
A solid enough recap but, so what? Most of us are aware of all this but we know that there’s no way with appeasement either. Consequently, it comes across as somewhat pointless fear mongering. It’s very odd, too, how Tucker and a couple of others seemed to so easily have groomed many so-called ‘conservatives’ into cheering for a Stalinist creep like Putin who’s responsible for this whole monstrous mess.
I should point out, too, that Russia didn’t ‘switch alliances’ voluntarily to the allied side during WW2; it was forced to. Even as Hitler suddenly turned on Russia, Russian supplies still continued into Germany as Stalin stupidly hoped he could somehow change Hitler’s mind. Russia was a very grudging ‘ally’.
A real intellectual let down Mr. Hanson. Some of us are aware of the history leading to the Russian invasion of 2022. You just keep on parroting that USG/DeepState agitprop and disinformation. Perhaps you can write in support of Mr. Rosen’s article this week (Senior Fellow at the AEI) calling for arming the Azov’s with nuclear weapons in order to trump any Russian thoughts about using nuclear weapons.
The real Russ are from Kyiv.
Yes, that’s very scary . . . yet I still agree with Piers Morgan, Nikki Haley, and others . . . we just cannot appease.
Sorry Victor. If you’re just selecting which comments are allowed you’re no better than the left. I had hopes for you but now I will just delete your site. Very disappointed. Bye now.
Good!
Criticize authoritarian Russia all you want, but to ignore real & pervasive Ukrainian Nazism, the U.S.-sponsored coup, Victoria Nuland’s role in this war (she represents nefarious deep state interests), etc., is perplexing.
Mr. Biden has radicalized once-moderate Russian politicians who had favorable views of the collective West. Many are now rabidly anti-Western and angry. As a result, there is irresponsible nuclear-brinksmanship.
President George Washington, in his 1796 farewell address, warned future Americans:
“… The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. … The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim. …”
Ah Simmons… here again when it’s time to trash Ukraine. How much is Vladdy Daddy paying you?
Thanks, VDH, this was concise touching many directions but one you missed. We, the USA will loose. I have that under total authority from Ezekiel 37, 38. Your buddy Gordon Chan is also wrong too. He keeps telling Americans that some bad things will happen in China. In so doing this is leading USA to have a false hope concerning China, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. Thanks, please read western civilization’s foundational book, the Bible, specifically Ezekiel chapters 37, 38.
Can you cite a non-extreme dispensationalist or even a moderate one that would support your exegesis of Ezekiel? False prophets come in for some pretty damning criticism in the Bible.
Tom – Are you willing to explain your viewpoint? What has Victor missed? What will the USA lose based upon Ezekiel 37 and 38? How do these chapters inform your perspective? What do these scriptures say about nuclear trash-talking or the United States?
Tom – I’ve spent some time reading Ezekiel from John MacArthur’s study Bible. It seems that chapter 37 is a prophesy predicting the reconstitution of national Israel after the Babylonian conquering and disbursal. Not only does the chapter foretell the return of the Jews to its land but also its spiritual revitalization under the rule of the Messiah. Hence, the covenants made to Abraham and David will be fulfilled and also the New Covenant which Jeremiah 31 also details. This prophecy has to this date only been partially fulfilled with the return of the Jews to its land and its reconstitute as a nation since there is yet to be a spiritual regeneration and a ruling Messiah. Both of these missing aspects are still future in a millennial kingdom.
Chapter 38 prophesizes a gathering of Israel’s enemies under its leader, Gog, the final Antichrist, to destroy Israel. These events occur prior to the millennial kingdom in a 7 year period of time called the tribulation. The Antichrist will establish a false peace with Israel for 3.5 years and then turn on the Jews for the next 3.5 years. This persecution culminates in the assembly of armies under the Antichrist to destroy Israel yet are instead destroyed by the LORD God.
Feel free to interact. I appreciate how you uphold the Bible as the foundational book of Western civilization.
Thanks for including that, Peter. In reference to my earlier comment: I would call McArthur’s exegesis a “traditional dispensationalist” or “moderate dispensationalist” read of the passage.
I never thought I’d ever make this comment: I think you’ve got this one wrong VDH.
In most of your generalities, you right of course, but Re: Russo/Ukrainian War, you sound just like the swamp creatures we all detest. Here’s a question to ponder, if Zlochevsky and Zelinsky weren’t holding that $10 million bribe over Biden’s head, how long ago would this war have ended? How many millions of people will die in this cover-up before it’s all over?
That bribe, if it occurred, would have been made by the corrupt regime the Euromaiden overthrew. If Z had any leverage over Joe, he would have got his F16s in September. Besides, what about the money he’s supposed to have taken from the Chinese? I bet that’s more!